Afghanistan Times
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AT Monitoring Desk
KABUL: Peace in Afghanistan is in the favor of Iran and Pakistan, said Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, who is in Iran for bilateral talks, in a joint press conference with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Moreover, he said that the two countries are ready to help efforts for political settlement in Afghanistan.
He said that “the four decades of war in Afghanistan has affected Pakistan and Iran and added that Pakistan hosted at one point four million refugees and today it hots 2.7 million Afghan refugees”.
“I know that Iran also, I think you have almost three million refugees in Iran,” Khan said.
The Pakistani Prime Minister said peace in Afghanistan will benefit trade between Iran and Pakistan.
“It is in the interest of both of our countries that there is peace in Afghanistan,” Khan said. “We will cooperate with each other in helping the being a political settlement there and I know it is in the interest of both of us because if there is peace in Afghanistan, not just that people of Afghanistan who have suffered four decades, but it is also will help Pakistan and Iran in our trade.”
“Once there is peace we will have trade, employment for our people, better standard of living for our people, so we decided to cooperate on that too on helping there to be a political settlement in Afghanistan,” he said reported by TOLONews.
Meanwhile, the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said they discussed issues in the region including cooperation in Afghan process.
“In terms of issues related to region, and cooperation between Iran and Pakistan towards peace and security in Afghanistan, as well as some other regional issues, we exchanged views.”
This comes as efforts to bring the Taliban to the table of talks with Afghan government is in full swing. Several round of talks between US peace envoy, and Taliban member held in Doha, with claiming progress in the talks. However, the planned intra-Afghan talks to be held in April 19 till 21, had been revoked after disagreement over delegation list. Taliban reacted to the fat list of government (250 members), saying it is a formal talk in a gulf country, not a weeding party.
